Mercury Systems makes mission-critical processing electronics for defense applications — specifically the hardware and software that sits between sensors like radars and electronic warfare systems and the warfighter. Mercury's products take raw signals, process them in real time, and convert them into actionable information, packaged to survive the harsh environments of aircraft, ships, missiles, and ground vehicles. Products span from basic RF and microwave components to fully integrated, ruggedized processing subsystems. Mercury sells primarily to U.S. defense prime contractors — RTX, Lockheed Martin, L3Harris, and Northrop Grumman — who embed Mercury's products into larger platforms like fighters, drones, and missile defense systems. Roughly 97% of revenue is defense-related, spread across more than 300 programs. Mercury operates as a Tier 2/Tier 3 supplier and generates revenue through two models: standard products developed with Mercury's own R&D and sold across multiple programs, and custom development contracts that are expected to transition into long-duration production programs. Development contracts tend to carry lower margins, while production contracts carry higher margins. Mercury's core growth thesis is that defense primes are increasingly outsourcing processing subsystem work to specialists rather than building in-house, and Mercury argues it can deliver commercial technology faster and more affordably. Key application areas include radar and sensor processing, electronic warfare, avionics, mission computing, and space.